James Cameron Explains Why Arnold Schwarzenegger is Old in ‘Terminator 5′

Arnold Schwarzenegger is 67 years old, which makes the idea of him playing an ageless, robotic killing machine in the upcoming 'Terminator: Genisys' seem oh-so-very silly [Ed. note: as silly as that title?]. However, it turns out that there's some fairly level-headed science fiction going on the explains Arnie's senior citizen appearance in the new film and it came courtesy of the franchise's original creator, James Cameron.

Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd were present for a Q&A at the 30th anniversary screening of 'The Terminator' in Los Angeles, where the two old collaborators shared all kinds of great stories about the series. Deadline was there and recorded all of their anecdotes for posterity, but they were also there when Cameron says that 'Terminator: Genisys' producer David Ellison gave him a call during the development process. It was here that Cameron explained why Old Arnold could be in the film:

I pointed out that the outer covering (of the Terminator) was actually not synthetic, that it was organic and therefore could age. You could theoretically have a Terminator that was sent back in time, missed his target, and ended up just kind of living on in society. Because he is a learning computer and has a brain as a central processor he could actually become more human as he went along without getting discovered.

So there you go! Schwarzenegger's Terminator in the film will look like an old man because he's been hanging around for so long, but he'll still be that same killer skeleton on the inside. It's actually a very clever solution to big narrative problem and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the finished film, which will supposedly feature a whole bunch of time traveling across the entire 'Terminator' mythos.